Charles was one of the most popular and beloved kings of England,[1] known as the Merry Monarch, in reference to both the liveliness and hedonism of his court and the general relief at the return to normality after over a decade of rule by Cromwell and the
Puritans. Charles's wife,
Catherine of Braganza, bore no live children, but Charles acknowledged at least twelve illegitimate children by various mistresses. He was succeeded by his brother James.

During the 1640s, when Charles was still young, his father fought
Parliamentary and
Puritan forces in the
English Civil War. Charles accompanied his father during the
Battle of Edgehill and, at the age of fourteen, participated in the campaigns of 1645, when he was made titular commander of the English forces in the
West Country.[4] By spring 1646, his father was losing the war, and Charles left England due to fears for his safety. Setting off from
Falmouth after staying at
Pendennis Castle, he went first to the
Isles of Scilly, then to
Jersey, and finally to France, where his mother was already living in exile and his first cousin, eight-year-old
Louis XIV, was king.[5] Charles I surrendered into captivity in May 1646.

Despite his son's diplomatic efforts to save him, King Charles I was beheaded in January 1649, and England became a republic. On 5 February, the
CovenanterParliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II "King of Great Britain, France and Ireland" at the
Mercat Cross, Edinburgh,[9] but refused to allow him to enter Scotland unless he accepted the imposition of Presbyterianism throughout Britain and Ireland.

When negotiations with the Scots stalled, Charles authorised
General Montrose to land in the
Orkney Islands with a small army to threaten the Scots with invasion, in the hope of forcing an agreement more to his liking. Montrose feared that Charles would accept a compromise, and so chose to invade mainland Scotland anyway. He was captured and executed. Charles reluctantly promised that he would abide by the terms of a
treaty agreed between him and the Scots Parliament at
Breda, and support the
Solemn League and Covenant, which authorised
Presbyterian church governance across Britain. Upon his arrival in Scotland on 23 June 1650, he formally agreed to the Covenant; his abandonment of
Episcopal church governance, although winning him support in Scotland, left him unpopular in England. Charles himself soon came to despise the "villainy" and "hypocrisy" of the Covenanters.[10]

Cast gold coronation medal of Charles II, dated 1651

On 3 September 1650, the Covenanters were defeated at the
Battle of Dunbar by a much smaller force led by
Oliver Cromwell. The Scots forces were divided into royalist Engagers and Presbyterian Covenanters, who even fought each other. Disillusioned by the Covenanters, in October Charles attempted to escape from them and rode north to join with an Engager force, an event which became known as "the Start", but within two days the Presbyterians had caught up with and recovered him.[11] Nevertheless, the Scots remained Charles's best hope of restoration, and he was crowned King of Scotland at
Scone Abbey on 1 January 1651. With Cromwell's forces threatening Charles's position in Scotland, it was decided to mount an attack on England. With many of the Scots (including
Lord Argyll and other leading Covenanters) refusing to participate, and with few English royalists joining the force as it moved south into England, the invasion ended in defeat at the
Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, after which Charles eluded capture by hiding in the
Royal Oak at
Boscobel House. Through six weeks of narrow escapes
Charles managed to flee England in disguise, landing in
Normandy on 16 October, despite a reward of
£1,000 on his head, risk of death for anyone caught helping him and the difficulty in disguising Charles, who, at over 6 ft (1.8 m), was unusually tall.[12][d]

Under the
Instrument of Government passed by Parliament, Cromwell was appointed
Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1653, effectively placing the
British Isles under military rule. Impoverished, Charles could not obtain sufficient support to mount a serious challenge to Cromwell's government. Despite the
Stuart family connections through Henrietta Maria and the Princess of Orange, France and the
Dutch Republic allied themselves with Cromwell's government from 1654, forcing Charles to turn for aid to Spain, which at that time ruled the
Southern Netherlands.[14]

Charles made the
Treaty of Brussels with Spain in 1656. This gathered Spanish support for a restoration in return for Charles's contribution to the war against France. Charles raised a ragtag army from his exiled subjects; this small, underpaid, poorly-equipped and ill-disciplined force formed the nucleus of the post-Restoration army.[15] The Commonwealth made the
Treaty of Paris with France in 1657 to join them in war against Spain in the Netherlands. Royalist supporters in the Spanish force were led by Charles's younger brother
James, Duke of York.[16] At the
Battle of the Dunes in 1658, as part of the larger Spanish force, Charles's army of around 2,000 clashed with Commonwealth troops fighting with the French. By the end of the battle Charles's force was about 1,000 and with Dunkirk given to the English the prospect of a Royalist expedition to England was dashed.[17]

Restoration

After the death of Cromwell in 1658, Charles's chances of regaining the Crown at first seemed slim as Cromwell was succeeded as Lord Protector by his son,
Richard. However, the new Lord Protector had little experience of either military or civil administration. In 1659, the
Rump Parliament was recalled and Richard resigned. During the civil and military unrest that followed,
George Monck, the Governor of Scotland, was concerned that the nation would descend into anarchy.[18] Monck and his army marched into the
City of London and forced the Rump Parliament to re-admit members of the
Long Parliament who had been excluded in December 1648 during
Pride's Purge. The Long Parliament dissolved itself and for the first time in almost 20 years, there was a general election.[19] The outgoing Parliament defined the electoral qualifications so as to ensure, as they thought, the return of a Presbyterian majority.[20]

The restrictions against royalist candidates and voters were widely ignored, and the elections resulted in a
House of Commons that was fairly evenly divided on political grounds between Royalists and Parliamentarians and on religious grounds between Anglicans and Presbyterians.[20] The new so-called
Convention Parliament assembled on 25 April 1660, and soon afterwards welcomed the
Declaration of Breda, in which Charles promised lenience and tolerance. There would be liberty of conscience and Anglican church policy would not be harsh. He would not exile past enemies nor confiscate their wealth. There would be pardons for nearly all his opponents except the
regicides. Above all, Charles promised to rule in cooperation with Parliament.[21] The English Parliament resolved to proclaim Charles king and invite him to return, a message that reached Charles at
Breda on 8 May 1660.[22] In Ireland, a
convention had been called earlier in the year, and had already declared for Charles. On 14 May, he was proclaimed king in Dublin.[23]

Charles sailed from his exile in the Netherlands to his restoration in England in May 1660. Painting by
Lieve Verschuier.

The English Parliament granted him an annual income to run the government of £1.2 million,[27] generated largely from customs and excise duties. The grant, however, proved to be insufficient for most of Charles's reign. For the most part, the actual revenue was much lower, which led to attempts to economise at court by reducing the size and expenses of the
royal household[27] and raise money through unpopular innovations such as the
hearth tax.[23]

In the latter half of 1660, Charles's joy at the Restoration was tempered by the deaths of his youngest brother,
Henry, and sister,
Mary, of
smallpox. At around the same time,
Anne Hyde, the daughter of the
Lord Chancellor,
Edward Hyde, revealed that she was pregnant by Charles's brother,
James, whom she had secretly married. Edward Hyde, who had not known of either the marriage or the pregnancy, was created
Earl of Clarendon and his position as Charles's favourite minister was strengthened.[28]

Clarendon Code

The Convention Parliament was dissolved in December 1660, and, shortly after the
coronation, the second English Parliament of the reign assembled. Dubbed the
Cavalier Parliament, it was overwhelmingly Royalist and Anglican. It sought to discourage
non-conformity to the
Church of England and passed several acts to secure Anglican dominance. The
Corporation Act 1661 required municipal officeholders to swear allegiance;[30] the
Act of Uniformity 1662 made the use of the Anglican
Book of Common Prayer compulsory; the
Conventicle Act 1664 prohibited religious assemblies of more than five people, except under the auspices of the Church of England; and the
Five Mile Act 1665 prohibited expelled non-conforming clergymen from coming within five miles (8 km) of a parish from which they had been banished. The Conventicle and Five Mile Acts remained in effect for the remainder of Charles's reign. The Acts became known as the
Clarendon Code, after Lord Clarendon, even though he was not directly responsible for them and even spoke against the Five Mile Act.[31]

We have a pretty witty king,
Whose word no man relies on,
He never said a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one"[33]

To which Charles is reputed to have replied "that the matter was easily accounted for: For that his discourse was his own, his actions were the ministry's".[34]

Great Plague and Great Fire

In 1665, Charles was faced with a great health crisis: the
Great Plague of London. The death toll reached a peak of 7,000 per week in the week of 17 September.[35] Charles, with his family and court, fled London in July to
Salisbury; Parliament met in
Oxford.[36] Plague cases ebbed over the winter, and Charles returned to London in February 1666.[37]

After a long spell of hot and dry weather through mid-1666, what later became known as the
Great Fire of London started on 2 September 1666 in a bakehouse on
Pudding Lane. Fanned by a strong easterly wind and fed by stockpiles of wood and fuel that had been prepared for the coming colder months, the fire eventually consumed about 13,200 houses and 87 churches, including
St Paul's Cathedral.[38] Charles and his brother James joined and directed the fire-fighting effort. The public blamed Catholic conspirators for the fire,[39] and one Frenchman,
Robert Hubert, was hanged on the basis of a false confession even though he had no hand in starting the fire.[38]

Foreign and colonial policy

Dutch engraving of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza

Since 1640, Portugal had been fighting a
war against Spain to restore its independence after a
dynastic union of sixty years between the crowns of Spain and Portugal. Portugal had been helped by France, but in the
Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 Portugal was abandoned by its French ally. Negotiations with Portugal for Charles's marriage to
Catherine of Braganza began during his father's reign and upon the restoration,
Queen Luísa of Portugal, acting as regent, reopened negotiations with England that resulted in an alliance. On 23 June 1661, a marriage treaty was signed; England acquired Catherine's
dowry of
Tangier (in North Africa) and the
Seven islands of Bombay (the latter having a major influence on the development of the
British Empire in India), together with trading privileges in
Brazil and the
East Indies, religious and commercial freedom in Portugal and two million Portuguese crowns (about £300,000); while Portugal obtained military and naval support against Spain and liberty of worship for Catherine.[40] Catherine journeyed from Portugal to
Portsmouth on 13–14 May 1662,[40] but was not visited by Charles there until 20 May. The next day the couple were married at Portsmouth in two ceremonies—a Catholic one conducted in secret, followed by a public
Anglican service.[40]

The same year, in an unpopular move, Charles
sold Dunkirk to his first cousin King
Louis XIV of France for about £375,000.[41] The channel port, although a valuable strategic outpost, was a drain on Charles's limited finances.[e]

Before Charles's restoration, the
Navigation Acts of 1650 had hurt
Dutch trade by giving English vessels a monopoly, and had started the
First Dutch War (1652–1654). To lay foundations for a new beginning, envoys of the
States General appeared in November 1660 with the
Dutch Gift.[43] The
Second Dutch War (1665–1667) was started by English attempts to muscle in on Dutch possessions in Africa and North America. The conflict began well for the English, with the capture of
New Amsterdam (renamed New York in honour of Charles's brother James, Duke of York) and a victory at the
Battle of Lowestoft, but in 1667 the Dutch launched a surprise attack on England (the
Raid on the Medway) when they sailed up the
River Thames to where a major part of the English fleet was docked. Almost all of the ships were sunk except for the flagship,
Royal Charles, which was taken back to the Netherlands as a trophy.[f] The Second Dutch War ended with the signing of the
Treaty of Breda.

In 1668, England allied itself with Sweden, and with its former enemy the Netherlands, to oppose Louis XIV in the
War of Devolution. Louis made peace with the
Triple Alliance, but he continued to maintain his aggressive intentions towards the Netherlands. In 1670, Charles, seeking to solve his financial troubles, agreed to the
Treaty of Dover, under which Louis XIV would pay him £160,000 each year. In exchange, Charles agreed to supply Louis with troops and to announce his conversion to Catholicism "as soon as the welfare of his kingdom will permit".[46] Louis was to provide him with 6,000 troops to suppress those who opposed the conversion. Charles endeavoured to ensure that the Treaty—especially the conversion clause—remained secret.[47] It remains unclear if Charles ever seriously intended to convert.[48]

Meanwhile, by a series of five charters, Charles granted the
East India Company the rights to autonomous government of its territorial acquisitions, to mint money, to command fortresses and troops, to form alliances, to make war and peace, and to exercise both civil and
criminal jurisdiction over its possessions in the Indies.[49] Earlier in 1668 he leased the islands of
Bombay to the company for a nominal sum of £10 paid in gold.[50] The Portuguese territories that Catherine brought with her as a dowry proved too expensive to maintain;
Tangier was abandoned in 1684.[51] In 1670, Charles granted control of the entire
Hudson Bay drainage basin to the
Hudson's Bay Company by royal charter, and named the territory
Rupert's Land, after his cousin
Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the company's first Governor.[52]

Conflict with Parliament

Although previously favourable to the Crown, the Cavalier Parliament was alienated by the King's wars and religious policies during the 1670s. In 1672, Charles issued the
Royal Declaration of Indulgence, in which he purported to suspend all
penal laws against Catholics and other religious dissenters. In the same year, he openly supported Catholic France and started the
Third Anglo-Dutch War.[53]

The Cavalier Parliament opposed the Declaration of Indulgence on constitutional grounds by claiming that the King had no right to arbitrarily suspend laws passed by Parliament. Charles withdrew the Declaration, and also agreed to the
Test Act, which not only required public officials to receive the
sacrament under the forms prescribed by the Church of England,[54] but also later forced them to denounce certain teachings of the Catholic Church as "
superstitious and
idolatrous".[55] Clifford, who had converted to Catholicism, resigned rather than take the oath, and committed suicide shortly after. By 1674 England had gained nothing from the Anglo-Dutch War, and the Cavalier Parliament refused to provide further funds, forcing Charles to make peace. The power of the Cabal waned and that of Clifford's replacement,
Lord Danby, grew.

Charles's wife Queen Catherine was unable to produce an heir; her four pregnancies had ended in
miscarriages and
stillbirths in 1662, February 1666, May 1668 and June 1669.[2] Charles's
heir presumptive was therefore his unpopular Catholic brother, James, Duke of York. Partly to assuage public fears that the royal family was too Catholic, Charles agreed that James's daughter,
Mary, should marry the Protestant
William of Orange.[56] In 1678,
Titus Oates, who had been alternately an Anglican and
Jesuit priest, falsely warned of a "
Popish Plot" to assassinate the King, even accusing the queen of complicity. Charles did not believe the allegations, but ordered his chief minister Lord Danby to investigate. While Danby seems to have been rightly sceptical about Oates's claims, the Cavalier Parliament took them seriously.[57] The people were seized with an anti-Catholic hysteria;[58] judges and juries across the land condemned the supposed conspirators; numerous innocent individuals were executed.[59]

Later in 1678, Danby was impeached by the House of Commons on the charge of
high treason. Although much of the nation had sought war with Catholic France, Charles had secretly negotiated with
Louis XIV, trying to reach an agreement under which England would remain neutral in return for money. Danby had publicly professed that he was hostile to France, but had reservedly agreed to abide by Charles's wishes. Unfortunately for him, the House of Commons failed to view him as a reluctant participant in the scandal, instead believing that he was the author of the policy. To save Danby from the impeachment trial, Charles dissolved the Cavalier Parliament in January 1679.[60]

The new English Parliament, which met in March of the same year, was quite hostile to Charles. Many members feared that he had intended to use the standing army to suppress dissent or impose Catholicism. However, with insufficient funds voted by Parliament, Charles was forced to gradually disband his troops. Having lost the support of Parliament, Danby resigned his post of
Lord High Treasurer, but received a pardon from the King. In defiance of the royal will, the House of Commons declared that the dissolution of Parliament did not interrupt impeachment proceedings, and that the pardon was therefore invalid. When the
House of Lords attempted to impose the punishment of exile—which the Commons thought too mild—the impeachment became stalled between the two Houses. As he had been required to do so many times during his reign, Charles bowed to the wishes of his opponents, committing Danby to the
Tower of London, in which he was held for another five years.[61]

Later years

Charles faced a political storm over his brother James, a Catholic, being next in line to the throne. The prospect of a Catholic monarch was vehemently opposed by
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury (previously Baron Ashley and a member of the Cabal, which had fallen apart in 1673). Shaftesbury's power base was strengthened when the House of Commons of 1679 introduced the
Exclusion Bill, which sought to exclude the Duke of York from the
line of succession. Some even sought to confer the Crown on the Protestant
Duke of Monmouth, the eldest of Charles's illegitimate children. The Abhorrers—those who thought the Exclusion Bill was abhorrent—were named
Tories (after a term for dispossessed Irish Catholic bandits), while the Petitioners—those who supported a petitioning campaign in favour of the Exclusion Bill—were called
Whigs (after a term for rebellious Scottish Presbyterians).[62]

Fearing that the Exclusion Bill would be passed, and bolstered by some acquittals in the continuing Plot trials, which seemed to him to indicate a more favourable public mood towards Catholicism, Charles dissolved the English Parliament, for a second time that year, in mid-1679. Charles's hopes for a more moderate Parliament were not fulfilled; within a few months he had dissolved Parliament yet again, after it sought to pass the Exclusion Bill. When a new Parliament assembled at Oxford in March 1681, Charles dissolved it for a fourth time after just a few days.[63] During the 1680s, however, popular support for the Exclusion Bill ebbed, and Charles experienced a nationwide surge of loyalty. Lord Shaftesbury was prosecuted (albeit unsuccessfully) for treason in 1681 and later fled to Holland, where he died. For the remainder of his reign, Charles ruled without Parliament.[64]

Charles's opposition to the Exclusion Bill angered some Protestants. Protestant conspirators formulated the
Rye House Plot, a plan to murder him and the Duke of York as they returned to London after horse races in
Newmarket. A great fire, however, destroyed Charles's lodgings at Newmarket, which forced him to leave the races early, thus inadvertently avoiding the planned attack. News of the failed plot was leaked.[65] Protestant politicians such as
Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex,
Algernon Sydney,
Lord William Russell and the Duke of Monmouth were implicated in the plot. Lord Essex slit his own throat while imprisoned in the Tower of London; Sydney and Russell were executed for high treason on very flimsy evidence; and the Duke of Monmouth went into exile at the court of William of Orange. Lord Danby and the surviving Catholic lords held in the Tower were released and the king's Catholic brother, James, acquired greater influence at court.[66] Titus Oates was convicted and imprisoned for defamation.[67]

Death

Charles suffered a sudden
apoplectic fit on the morning of 2 February 1685, and died aged 54 at 11:45 am four days later at
Whitehall Palace.[68] The suddenness of his illness and death led to suspicion of poison in the minds of many, including one of the royal doctors; however, a more modern medical analysis has held that the symptoms of his final illness are similar to those of
uraemia (a clinical syndrome due to kidney dysfunction).[69] In the days between his collapse and his death, Charles endured a variety of torturous treatments including
bloodletting, purging and
cupping in hopes of effecting a recovery.[70]

On his deathbed Charles asked his brother, James, to look after his mistresses: "be well to
Portsmouth, and let not poor
Nelly starve".[71] He told his courtiers, "I am sorry, gentlemen, for being such a time a-dying",[72] and expressed regret at his treatment of his wife. On the last evening of his life he was received into the Catholic Church in the presence of Father
John Huddleston, though the extent to which he was fully conscious or committed, and with whom the idea originated, is unclear.[73] He was buried in
Westminster Abbey "without any manner of pomp"[72] on 14 February.[74]

Charles was succeeded by his brother, who became
James II of England and Ireland and James VII of Scotland.

Legacy

Biographer
Ronald Hutton says Charles was a popular king in his own day and a "legendary figure" in British history.

Other kings had inspired more respect, but perhaps only Henry VIII had endeared himself to the popular imagination as much as this one. He was the playboy monarch, naughty but nice, the hero of all who prized urbanity, tolerance, good humour, and the pursuit of pleasure above the more earnest, sober, or material virtues.[75]

Charles was universally beloved, beloved not only by the crowd of individuals with whom he came in contact, not only adored by his dependents, but thoroughly popular with the mass of his subjects and particularly with the poorer populace of London who knew him best.[76]

The escapades of Charles after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester remained important to him throughout his life. He delighted and bored listeners with tales of his escape for many years. Numerous accounts of his adventures were published, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the Restoration. Though not averse to his escape being ascribed to divine providence, Charles himself seems to have delighted most in his ability to sustain his disguise as a man of ordinary origins, and to move unrecognised through his realm. Ironic and cynical, Charles took pleasure in retailing stories which demonstrated the undetectable nature of any inherent majesty he possessed.[77]

Looking back on Charles's reign, Tories tended to view it as a time of benevolent monarchy whereas Whigs perceived it as a terrible
despotism. Today it is possible to assess him without the taint of partisanship, and he is seen as more of a lovable rogue—in the words of his contemporary
John Evelyn, "a prince of many virtues and many great imperfections, debonair, easy of access, not bloody or cruel".[82]John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, wrote more lewdly of Charles:

Restless he rolls from whore to whore
A merry monarch, scandalous and poor.[83]

Issue

James Crofts, later Scott (1649–1685), created
Duke of Monmouth (1663) in England and
Duke of Buccleuch (1663) in Scotland. Monmouth was born nine months after Walter and Charles II first met, and was acknowledged as his son by Charles II, but James II suggested that he was the son of another of her lovers, Colonel Robert Sidney, rather than Charles. Lucy Walter had a daughter, Mary Crofts, born after James in 1651, but Charles II was not the father, since he and Walter parted in September 1649.[2]

Notes

^The traditional date of the Restoration marking the first assembly of King and Parliament together since the abolition of the English monarchy in 1649. The English Parliament recognised Charles as king by unanimous vote on 2 May 1660, and he was proclaimed king in London on 8 May, although royalists had recognised him as such since the execution of his father on 30 January 1649. During Charles's reign all legal documents were dated as if his reign began at his father's death.

Raithby, John, ed. (1819a), "Charles II, 1678: (Stat. 2.) An Act for the more effectuall preserving the Kings Person and Government by disableing Papists from sitting in either House of Parlyament",
Statutes of the Realm: volume 5: 1628–80, retrieved 19 April 2010